ST. GEORGE, UT – The UCLA Bruins have made their first trek to Utah since 2016 for tomorrow's PAC Conference regular-season match against the University of Utah Utes. The two sides will meet in St. George, UT, about two hours northeast of Las Vegas, for a more centralized location between the two schools.
The Bruins, currently 2-1 in PAC Conference play this season, pushed through a tough second half performance to tie San Diego State in a D1A friendly last weekend. The gritty performance from UCLA against the #13 Aztecs marked a large improvement from their match against then-ranked #13 Arizona back on February 3.
Bruins head coach Scott Stewart gave his thoughts on the draw in San Diego saying, "We started well overall and defended well early on, but stopped moving up quick on defense in the second half where they gained some momentum."
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Yoh Nakayama, then a sophomore,
converts a crucial second-half conversion in
UCLA's 36-34 comeback win in Salt Lake City, 2016
Utah, however, will be a quite different from SDSU. The last time UCLA traveled to Utah they found themselves victors at the end of an epic comeback, scraping out a 36-34 victory that saw the boys in blue overcome a 17 point second-half deficit for a vital PAC win.
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Utah's recent form is a point of concern going into Saturday's match. The Utes have not fared well thus far having lost 70-19 to Arizona in their first match and 48-36 to a surprising Grand Canyon University team. This makes UCLA's job slightly more challenging considering the mercurial abilities the Utes possess. Despite their defensive deficiencies, Utah showed a counter-attacking skill against Grand Canyon that could give the Bruins trouble like they experienced against Arizona.
On the other side of the ball, the Bruins have the advantage of the San Diego tuneup on their side, a "friendly" that felt more like a regular-season match than not. The extra minutes gave UCLA's forwards more time to continue building as a cohesive unit and gave the backs a needed defensive challenge to build on following adjustments made after the Arizona match.
As for UCLA's game-plan, the Bruins need to get a quicker attacking start out of the gates than they did against San Diego State. The Aztecs put on pressure early in an attempt to wear the Bruins down, a tactic that put a strain on the Bruins' attacking game. As we've seen on several occasions throughout the season, there is plenty of stellar attacking talent within UCLA's squad from veterans like James Francis to underclass like Connor Bercik and Patrick Regan, all of whom need to be ready for a proper fight from Utah.
Stewart detailed where his side needs to perform in order to secure their third victory of the season, saying, "Utah shifts the point of attack and has excellent physicality, both of which we need to attend to. Playing teams at this level requires a complete game, so each player will be required to look after his own fundamentals."
"We have focused on defense since the early part of the year as the opponents have required us to, we need to keep getting better."
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The Bruins take on the Utah Utes tomorrow at 6 PM at Snow Canyon High School in St. George, UT. Make sure keep up with the action on our official UCLA Rugby Facebook and Twitter outlets, and make sure to come back for our post-match review for analysis on the Bruins's performance!
